Dr Nguyen Ngoc Lung, Director of the Institute for Sustainable Forest Management and Forest Certification, explains that biodiversity degradation can be seen in three forms - biodiversity of ecosystems; of species; and genetic biodiversity.

A combination of bad factors, plus cold air mass and convergence of winds at a height of 5,000 meters, have caused extreme weather phenomena, including large hail and the 50-year historic cold spell on April 22-23.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) is moving ahead with a project on building 19 automatic air environment monitoring stations in 17 cities and provinces and 20 stations specializing in measuring PM2.5 dust.

Tailings, the materials left over after the ore sorting process, are mostly discharged into dams and reservoirs. Disasters occur when the dams and reservoirs break down, leaking water into the environment and threatening people’s health.

In the days of social distancing, people are leading slow lives and spending time thinking about themselves and about their fragile fate before nature, which is close and gentle but also mysterious and violent.